Briton held in hunt for teenage girl murderer in Spain

Police hunting a suspected murderer of teenage girls in the Malaga area of southern Spain have arrested a British man they believe is connected with at least one of the killings.

Tony Alexander King, 38, was picked up yesterday in Alhaurin El Grande, 15 miles from Malaga.

"The evidence points to his taking part in the events being investigated," the interior minister, Angel Acebes, said after the arrest.

Although no charges were laid against him yesterday, the Spanish authorities hailed Mr King's arrest as a vital breakthrough in the investigation of a series of murders which have puzzled the police on the Costa del Sol for years.

The police are reported to have found that a damaged headlight on his car matched fragments of a headlight found where the body of Sonia Carabantes, 17, was found in August.

She had been attacked and abducted on her way home late at night from the fiestas in nearby Coin.

Blood and items of her clothing were found at the place where she was snatched, a pair of her trousers was found elsewhere, and her semi-naked body was discovered in a third place. The police conducted DNA tests on from skin from beneath her fingernails.

To their surprise the police found that the DNA matched that on a cigarette stub discovered beside the corpse of Rocio Wanninkhof, 18, murdered in 1999.

She too was abducted, as she walked from her home to the local fiestas in Mijas. In both cases the corpses were partially stripped. There were no signs of rape.

Dolores Vazquez, a Spanish woman who had lived in Britain and shared a house with Rocio's mother, was arrested, tried and found guilty. But the verdict was overturned and she was due to face a retrial next month.

Mr King was arrested at the Emilia Olivares primary school, where he he is reported to live with his girlfriend. It is not clear whether his girlfriend was the school caretaker or one of her two teenage daughters.

Taken away by the police with a blanket over his head, Mr King ran a gauntlet of stones hurled by angry locals shouting Asesino (assassin).

Mr King was a barman in the Bowers Arms, a pub frequented by Britons in Alhaurin El Grande, a town of about 18,000 people.

Carlos Rubio, the government delegate for Malaga province, said the arrest should help solve both killings.

"We are convinced that we will clear up these terrible murder cases, both that of Sonia Carabantes and that of Rocio Wanninkhof," he said.

Although some Spanish media reported yesterday that Mr King's DNA matched that found at both murder scenes, Mr Rubio said it was "too early" to say.

Rocio Wanninkhof's mother said yesterday that she remained convinced that Dolores Vazquez had killed her daughter, but that she believed more than one person had been involved.

"She could not have killed Rocio by herself. Let us see if everything comes out now," she said.

There were unconfirmed reports yesterday that Mr King, who allegedly has a criminal record in Britain, had worked in the same hotel as Ms Vazquez. Ms Vazquez shared a house with Rocio's mother, her partner in a lesbian relationship, and helped bring the girl up for several years.

The British community in Alhaurin El Grande was shocked by the arrest. Of the half-dozen people spoken to by the Guardian, most seemed to know Mr King's name but nobody admitted knowing him in person. The Bowers Arms was closed.

The Spanish media reported that Mr King was divorced with one child, had lived in Spain for six years, and may have had a house of his own somewhere else on the Costa del Sol.

Two other cases of missing teenage girls in the region have been linked by the Spanish media to the murders of Sonia and Rocio.